The high-carbon society that is heavily relying on fossil fuel-based growth will change to low-carbon society and then to hydrogen society where continuous growth is possible. For such a turn into hydrogen society, the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has been categorized as the technology to utilize hydrogen and investigated for a considerable period of time on its potential for industrialization. The PEMFC has larger current density and power density compared to other forms of fuel cells, while it has relatively smaller volume and weight, thus is actively researched and developed for the purpose of commercialization in the field of transportation equipments worldwide.
For the commercialization, above all, it is necessary to ensure economical and durability aspects of the PEMFC itself. The cost of currently available PEMFC includes cost for the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) which takes up about 45% of the total cost, and electrode material using platinum (Pt) within the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) which takes up ⅔ of the total cost. In other words, the Pt electrode takes up about 30% the total cost.
The automobile industry anticipates that the vehicles on PEMFC would enter growing period by 2020, with the use of Pt for the PEMFC increasing as high as 25 times or above, compared to the conventional internal combustion engines. It is thus anticipated that the use of Pt per vehicle will increase greatly. Considering the fact that South Africa has 88% of the world's platinum elements containing Pt therein, there are always the problems such as uneven resources distribution and supply and demand instability.
Accordingly, the platinum (Pt) price is expected to continue to rise and the issue of PEMFC price can hardly be addressed sufficiently even when the costs of the other materials are greatly reduced. Accordingly, the technology to reduce use of Pt in the MEA is considered to be the key technology as far as PEMFC is concerned.